A Web hosting control panel is a web-based interface that enables users to manage hosted services in a single location. Control panels can manage email account configuration, databases, FTP users’ accounts, monitor web space and bandwidth consumed, provide file management functionality, create backups, create subdomains and much more.
Web hosting control panels offer an attractive solution to developers and designers that host multiple web sites on virtual private servers and dedicated servers. This type of server management software simplifies the process of managing servers. By offering an easy to user interface, the control panels avoid the need to have expert knowledge of server administration.
Two of the most popular control panels are Plesk and cPanel. These are web-based graphical control panels that allow you to easily and intuitively administer websites, DNS, e-mail accounts, SSL certificates and databases. However, they are both proprietary software. Hosting providers will charge a monthly fee for these control panels to be installed on a server. Fortunately, there is a wide range of open source software available to download at no cost that offers a real alternative to these proprietary solutions.
To provide an insight into the quality of software that is available, we have compiled a list of 11 high quality web hosting control panels tools that let users take full control of a web hosting account. The ratings chart below captures our recommendations.

Let’s explore the 11 web hosting control panels at hand. Click the links in the table below to learn more about each control panel.
| Web Hosting Control Panels | |
|---|---|
| 1Panel | Modern web-based control panel for Linux server management |
| Webmin | Web-based interface for system administration |
| ISPConfig | BSD-licensed, hosting control panel supporting many Linux distributions |
| Virtualmin | Powerful and flexible web hosting control panel based on Webmin |
| Cockpit | Sysadmin login session in a web browser |
| Ajenti | Modular server admin panel |
| aaPanel | Simple but powerful control panel |
| Hestia CP | Lightweight and powerful control panel |
| froxlor | Server management panel to manage your hosting platform |
| Sentora | Web hosting control panel |
| Vesta | Easy to use control panel |
This article has been updated to reflect the changes outlined in our recent announcement.
Explore our comprehensive directory of recommended free and open source software. Our carefully curated collection spans every major software category.This directory is part of our ongoing series of informative articles for Linux enthusiasts. It features hundreds of detailed reviews, along with open source alternatives to proprietary solutions from major corporations such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, and Autodesk. You’ll also find interesting projects to try, hardware coverage, free programming books and tutorials, and much more. Know a useful open source Linux program that we haven’t covered yet? Let us know by completing this form. |


Webmin seems very popular with VPS providers.
Yes, it’s probably the most common open source panel used by VPS providers.
Hello,
Could you please review OpenPanel ?
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